Rachel Sigman
Welcome to my academic website! I am Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver. I am also a project manager with the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project.
I conduct research on democracy, governance, political finance, bureaucracy, and government performance around the world.
My first book, Parties, Political Finance, and Governance in Africa (Cambridge University Press 2023), explains the important role of political party institutions for understanding patterns of political financing and state politicization in Africa. My current book project examines bureaucratic responses to democratic backsliding. I have also worked on projects related to political finance in Africa, the measurement of state capacity and exclusion, the effects of oil revenue on bureaucratic institutions, the relationship between distributional inequality and democracy, and security sector governance (including military coups and international security sector assistance) in Africa.